Shop

Concept

The Peugeot family might be going back to their pepper mill business since losing a big stake in the company, but the automaker itself is still hard at work with a new concept for the Paris Motor Show. Its latest creation is the Peugeot Quartz that imagines a high-performance CUV with a 500-horsepower, hybrid drivetrain on tap.

There's a quiet revolution happening in US cities. People want to mix an urban lifestyle with a connection to nature and appreciation for craftsmanship. The result of all of this is folks pursuing things as varied as urban farming, home brewing and the whole maker movement. Toyota thinks it has the perfect concept for these intrepid customers with its new Urban Utility – or, U-squared, not U2 like the band – concept that it is debuting during a panel discussion hosted by Make: magazi

A couple of weeks ago, Infiniti released a teaser and brief statement on a new debut it had in store for the upcoming Paris Motor Show, and the Japanese luxury marque is now giving us a bit more to chew on.

Eric Kim just graduated from the from the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, CA, at the end of the spring 2014 semester, and for his senior thesis project he came up with this futuristic Audi endurance racer called the Airomorph. He even got some input Audi designer Kris Vancoppenolle.

BMW seems willing to exploit every automotive niche it can find with creations like the four-door, 'crossover coupe' X4 and X6. Of course, these designs come with a compromise. That svelte fastback means that they just can't haul as much cargo as a more traditional, boxier hatchback. Fortunately, students at Clemson University's International Center for Automotive Research might have a novel solution: the engineering graduate program has turned the crossover into a unique pickup.

To American enthusiasts, nothing might say rock n' roll quite like a classic muscle car. But that doesn't preclude the Europeans from trying. Volkswagen has partnered with Fender for its premium audio systems, and now Alfa Romeo is teaming up with some rocking powerhouses as well.

Typically when an automaker rolls out a concept car or pre-production prototype, it does its tour and then disappears into the company's archives. Maybe it will be displayed for the public to see in the company's own museum or maybe it will spend most of its time under covers in a warehouse somewhere, but every once in a while, an automaker will open up its history and start selling off its concept cars. For Shelby American, "once in a while" has just rolled around.

When you think of daring concept cars or emotional design-student projects, Buick probably isn't the first brand that comes to mind. It's not for lack of concepts; when General Motors ran down 11 concept-car highlights from Buick's 110-year history, three of them are from the past 15 years, with other experiments in that same timeframe like the Black Hawk, Centieme and Cielo left unmentioned.

We fell in love with the Mini Superleggera Vision Concept from the moment we laid eyes on it. The little convertible blends retro and modern together better than any Mini in years. There is even more good news about the roadster as well because the company is considering actually building it. We even have some renders of what the production version could look like.

This year's Wörthersee Treffen in Austria is packed with interesting concepts like Audi's 525-horsepower A3, Seat's Ibiza Cupster, the Volkswagen GTI Roadster and Skoda Yeti Xtreme, but none of them are quite right for a party, until now. VW's commercial arm is bringing the Amarok Power concept pickup to the show with a 5,000-watt, removable sound system in the bed.

The DeltaWing has been an interesting experiment to watch evolve. It started out as just a test in the 2012 24 Hours of Le Mans to see if such a radically different design could actually be competitive on the track. It has kept racing though and entered its second season of racing in the US this year. DeltaWing Technologies Inc. is now taking the next big leap in the racecar's tech with a four-seat roadcar concept (pictured above).

More automakers need events like the annual Wörthersee Treffen in Austria from Volkswagen Group. It offers a chance for the automotive giant's designers to go wild and create one-offs that wouldn't get made otherwise. This year Audi has its 525-horsepower A3 Clubsport Quattro for the show, and this quirky Ibiza Cupster is the creation of Seat.

It seems like you can't turn on the news this year without seeing the icy stare of Russian President Vladimir Putin. Whether he's opening the Olympics, sending troops to the Ukrainian border or just riding a horse while shirtless, he's seemingly everywhere. But behind the scenes, Putin has a big engineering project under development to create a new Russian-built and engineered official limousine for him and other top officials.

With coupes and convertibles, hatchbacks and crossovers, Mini has done just about every bodystyle we could think of, and then a few more as concepts. But it hasn't done a pickup. At least it hadn't until now.

If the teaser video for Lincoln's launch of a new concept at the 2014 Beijing Motor Show wasn't enough for you, the company has now released a shadowy new image on its Twitter page. The vehicle may be a concept for the next-generation MKX, and its launch in China is part of the huge rollout to sell the brand's models there.

We've seen the i3 and i8 plug-in vehicles at plenty of BMW auto show stands these past few years. At the upcoming New York International Auto Show, the automaker will spread out a bit by showing off both new diesel and plug-in hybrid SUVs. Bimmer will showcase its diesel-powered X3 vehicle, which starts sales this spring as a 2015 model, and a concept plug-in hybrid X5 SUV.

At the Geneva Motor Show barely a month ago, Land Rover began teasing its plan to launch a new Discovery (currently known as the LR4 in the US). Now it looks like it's going to be just a few weeks before we actually get to see the new truck, at least in concept form. The British automaker has released a new teaser image and trailer for the Discovery Vision Concept that is debuting at the New York Auto Show, on April 16.

Jeep has an annual tradition of debuting wild, new concepts during its Easter Jeep Safari, and this year looks to be no different. The automaker has already confirmed two of the six vehicles for 2014 – the Cherokee Dakar (pictured above) and Wrangler Mojo. This year's event runs in Moab, Utah, from April 12-20.

Designer David Obendorfer doesn't work for BMW, but perhaps the German automaker should give him a call. His CS Vintage Concept shows a singular ability to understand the brand's classic style and reinterpret it for today. He isn't some amateur, either. Obendorfer has an industrial design degree and has been penning the interiors and exteriors of yachts from the Officina Italiana Design for five years, which counts luxury shipbuilders like Riva and Sanlorenzo among its clients. His website shows

Honda has rolled out a pair of new production-intent motorcycle concepts at the Osaka Motorcycle Show in its home market of Japan, and they're our first glimpse at the company's "neo-futuristic" NM4. Shown in both stealthy black and an eye-catching white, the NM4s are sharp creations that feature interesting riding positions.